The Conflict Part 29

Her face became deathly pale, then crimson. She thrust the envelope into the bag, closed it hastily. "Then I can't give it," she murmured.

"Oh--but you are hard!"

"If you broke with your father and came with us--and it killed him, as it probably would," Victor Dorn went on, "I should respect you--should regard you as a wonderful, terrible woman. I should envy you having a heart strong enough to do a thing so supremely right and so supremely relentless. And I should be glad you were not of my blood--should think you hardly human. Yet that is what you ought to do."

"I am not up to it," said Jane.

"Then you mustn't do the other," said Victor. "We need the money. I am false to the cause in urging you not to give it. But--I'm human."

He was looking away, an expression in his eyes and about his mouth that made him handsomer than she would have believed a man could be. She was looking at him longingly, her beautiful eyes swimming. Her lips were saying inaudibly, "I love you--I love you."

"What did you say?" he asked, his thoughts returning from their far journey.

"My time is up," she exclaimed, rising.

"There are better ways of helping than money," said he, taking her hand. "And already you've helped in those ways."

"May I come again?"

"Whenever you like. But--what would your father say?"

"Then you don't want me to come again?"

"It's best not," said he. "I wish fate had thrown us on the same side.

But it has put us in opposite camps--and we owe it to ourselves to submit."

Their hands were still clasped. "You are content to have it so?" she said sadly.

"No, I'm not," cried he, dropping her hand. "But we are helpless."

"We can always hope," said she softly.

On impulse she laid her hand in light caress upon his brow, then swiftly departed. As she stood in Mrs. Colman's flowery little front yard and looked dazedly about, it seemed to her that she had been away from the world--away from herself--and was reluctantly but inevitably returning.

VI

As Jane drove into the grounds of the house on the hilltop she saw her father and David Hull in an obviously intimate and agitated conversation on the front veranda. She made all haste to join them; nor was she deterred by the reception she got--the reception given to the unwelcome interrupter. Said she:

"You are talking about those indictments, aren't you? Everyone else is. There's a group on every corner down town, and people are calling their views to each other from windows across the streets."

Davy glanced triumphantly at her father. "I told you so," said he.

Old Hastings was rubbing his hand over his large, bony, wizened face in the manner that indicates extreme perplexity.

Davy turned to Jane. "I've been trying to show your father what a stupid, dangerous thing d.i.c.k Kelly has done. I want him to help me undo it. It MUST be undone or Victor Dorn will sweep the town on election day."

Jane's heart was beating wildly. She continued to say carelessly, "You think so?"

"Davy's got a bad attack of big red eye to-day," said her father.

"It's a habit young men have."

"I'm right, Mr. Hastings," cried Hull. "And, furthermore, you know I'm right, Jane; you saw that riot the other night. Joe Wetherbe told me so. You said that it was an absolutely unprovoked a.s.sault of the gangs of Kelly and House. Everyone in town knows it was. The middle and the upper cla.s.s people are pretending to believe what the papers printed--what they'd like to believe. But they KNOW better. The working people are apparently silent. They usually are apparently silent. But they know the truth--they are talking it among themselves.

And these indictments will make Victor Dorn a hero."

"What of it? What of it?" said Hastings impatiently. "The working people don't count."

"Not as long as we can keep them divided," retorted Davy. "But if they unite----"

And he went on to explain what he had in mind. He gave them an a.n.a.lysis of Remsen City. About fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom about ten thousand were voters. These voters were divided into three cla.s.ses--upper cla.s.s, with not more than three or four hundred votes, and therefore politically of no importance AT THE POLLS, though overwhelmingly the most influential in any other way; the middle cla.s.s, the big and little merchants, the lawyers and doctors, the agents and firemen and so on, mustering in all about two thousand votes; finally, the working cla.s.s with no less than eight thousand votes out of a total of ten thousand.

"By bribery and cajolery and browbeating and appeal to religious prejudice and to fear of losing jobs--by all sorts of chicane," said Davy, "about seven of these eight thousand votes are kept divided between the Republican or Kelly party and the Democratic or House party. The other ten or twelve hundred belong to Victor Dorn's League.

Now, the seven thousand workingmen voters who follow Kelly and House like Victor Dorn, like his ideas, are with him at heart. But they are afraid of him. They don't trust each other. Workingmen despise the workingman as an ignorant fool."

"So he is," said Hastings.

"So he is," agreed Davy. "But Victor Dorn has about got the workingmen in this town persuaded that they'd fare better with Dorn and the League as their leaders than with Kelly and House as their leaders. And if Kelly goes on to persecute Victor Dorn, the workingmen will be frightened for their rights to free speech and free a.s.sembly. And they'll unite. I appeal to you, Jane--isn't that common sense?"

"I don't know anything about politics," said Jane, looking bored. "You must go in and lie down before dinner, father. You look tired."

Hastings got ready to rise.

"Just a minute, Mr. Hastings," pleaded Hull. "This must be settled now--at once. I must be in a position not only to denounce this thing, but also to stop it. Not to-morrow, but to-day ... so that the morning papers will have the news."

Jane's thoughts were flying--but in circles. Everybody habitually judges everybody else as both more and less acute than he really is.

Jane had great respect for Davy as a man of college education. But because he had no sense of humor and because he abounded in lengthy plat.i.tudes she had thought poorly indeed of his abilities. She had been realizing her mistake in these last few minutes. The man who had made that a.n.a.lysis of politics--an a.n.a.lysis which suddenly enlighted her as to what political power meant and how it was wielded everywhere on earth as well as in Remsen City--the man was no mere dreamer and theorist. He had seen the point no less clearly than had Victor Dorn.

But what concerned her, what set her to fluttering, was that he was about to checkmate Victor Dorn. What should she say and do to help Victor?

She must get her father away. She took him gently by the arm, kissed the top of his head. "Come on, father," she cried. "I'll let Davy work his excitement off on me. You must take care of your health."

But Hastings resisted. "Wait a minute, Jenny," said he. "I must think."

"You can think lying down," insisted his daughter Davy was about to interpose again, but she frowned him into silence.

"There's something in what Davy says," persisted her father. "If that there Victor Dorn should carry the election, there'd be no living in the same town with him. It'd put him away up out of reach."

Jane abruptly released her father's arm. She had not thought of that--of how much more difficult Victor would be if he won now. She wanted him to win ultimately--yes, she was sure she did. But--now?

Wouldn't that put him beyond her reach--beyond need of her?

She said: "Please come, father!" But it was perfunctory loyalty to Victor. Her father settled back; Davy Hull began afresh, pressing home his point, making his contention so clear that even Martin Hastings'

prejudice could not blind him to the truth. And Jane sat on the arm of a big veranda chair and listened and made no further effort to interfere.

"I don't agree with you, Hull," said the old man at last. "Victor Dorn's run up agin the law at last, and he ought to get the consequences good and hard. But----"

"Mr. Hastings," interrupted Davy eagerly--too fond of talking to realize that the old man was agreeing with him, "Your daughter saw----"

"Fiddle-fiddle," cried the old man. "Don't bring sentimental women into this, Davy. As I was saying, Victor ought to be punished for the way he's been stirring up idle, lazy, ignorant people against the men that runs the community and gives 'em jobs and food for their children.

But maybe it ain't wise to give him his deserts--just now. Anyhow, while you've been talking away like a sewing machine I've been thinking. I don't see as how it can do any serious HARM to stop them there indictments."